Thanks, Doc
by Moonlit-Arrow
Summary: Joey sees a therapist for the guilt he feels after the crimes he committed.


{~Warning for referenced murders and unwritten swearwords~}

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He licked his chapped lips nervously, staring right at the man sitting in front of him with a pad of paper and a pen in his hand. The sight of an instrument of ink triggered unwanted memories of the studio he used to operate at, of what he had done. That was... that was okay, it was the reason he came here to begin with.

The man in the chair barely took notice of his staring, simply finished a couple notes he was jotting down before speaking again. "Well, Mr. Drew, it seems to me that this is a sort of a guilt-feeling. You've done something you regret immensely and wish you could make it right. Perhaps if you start from the beginning of what it is causing you grief, I can assist you to a solution."

Joey nodded and began to tell the sad tale of his studio. "It was years ago. Many, many years ago. Me and my friend created a cartoon together." His mild filled with photograph-like images of himself and his old pal back when they were younger and just starting out on their career path. "We bought a rickety old studio to start our business out. We- we wanted to be ahead of the game, we put in full audio."

A new image entered his mind, one of a young blond man he had found and hired for audio. "I found a young man for the sound, he was incredible, best musician I heard." At first, the images of said musician were happy ones, pictures of him working with the two superiors, writing songs, playing the banjo, just all pleasant times from when he first met him. But then...

"Was?

It got dark. The image of the younger blond pressing himself against a wall in an attempt to escape the dead-end hallway he was trapped in, blood trickling down his face as his blue eyes stared up in absolute horror with tears starting to pour down his thinning cheeks. " _No-no, p-please-,_ " the sweetly smooth voice begged, a sob wrecking the words. Oh, the fear was sweeter than honey.

No- no the fear was wrong! The sweet -no! _**Not sweet**_!- screaming was **_wrong_**! What he had done was wrong.

"Mr. Drew?"

He snapped back to reality and looked at the man with a face he forced into being somber again.

"I'm going to guess that the blond was the first of your regrets?" the man mused, lifting an eyebrow curiously. "Perhaps you regret hiring him to begin wi-"

"If you're trying to tell me that Sammy was a horrible person before what I did to him, you can shut the **** up!" Joey growled, leaning forward and practically standing up to glare at him. "That was entirely my fault! I was the one who did this to him, he didn't do anything to deserve it, that was my ****ed up mind!" he collapsed back on the couch. "I regret what I did to him, not for hiring him in the first place. He was good, in need of a job, and if I didn't hire him, who would? There weren't many openings anywhere at the time."

The man seemed slightly surprised but fought it back and scribbled that down. "I...see," he said. "Please, return to your story."

Joey relaxed again, a glare still pointed at the man. How dare anyone accuse him of poor business techniques and poor choices of character? He was great at his old job! And Sammy wasn't a bad person, he was at least decent. He knew Sammy hated his guts, but still...decent.

"With the three of us working together, the studio started to grow. We got new animators and Sammy formed a band of musicians he knew," he explained calming down with the story. What he left out was...well...Henry. It was Henry who got their group of animators together, but he'd never credit the traitor with anything. He'd credit that runaway music director before crediting the traitor.

"Things were going great for a while! We introduced some new characters, Boris and eventually Alice, we added new vocalists to the team, everything was going great!" he sounded happy but he was really lying about his joy. "But then..."

In his mind he faced the ghost images of the past. Susie trying desperately to hide in the recording booth, Wally destroying part of the machine as his means of escape, Norman's fist heading towards his face as that man was not about to be sacrificed if he could help it. The screams and begs of his past employees still rang in his ears, reminding him of what he had done.

He sighed as he continued. "Then, my co-founder left, and took with him my self control. Sammy tried to replace him, though I don't think he realized it, but he stopped after I accidentally let out my frustration at him. After that, he only give me a glance if it meant business."

His lips curled into a smile. "That was when I unveiled my ultimate creation! My Ink Machine I worked so hard to design and spent so much money to get built!" He moved his hands elaborately to demonstrate the true beauty that was the Ink Machine. "It was a marvel for all to see, if only the employees thought the same way."

"They didn't like it?" the man asked, lifting an eyebrow.

"It was too noisy for their liking and caused constant pipe-bursts, flooding places with ink. The music department was located below it and got flooded the most, they'd get completely stuck due to ink flooding all exits. There was no way out for them. So, I did something to fix it.

"I installed a switch to manually control a pump located under the stairwell to their main exit. It was placed in Sammy's office and was frequently used, I believe that's what caused his initial hatred of me. I don't know, maybe I asked too much of him too quickly, but I think it was the switch judging by his reaction to it."

He remembered the sight of Sammy storming up to him and yelling at him about what he had done to his office. It was the most logical place, he had assured him. Thankfully, Sammy didn't question him too far past that and, begrudgingly, returned to work. It wasn't like he could just move the switch anyway, he spent too much money already.

"It worked for a while but, sadly, the show wasn't doing to well anymore, I hadn't been writing or rushing to get the show finished, I was too focused on my masterpiece and what it offered me. My machine gave me power that the employees couldn't understand. I had infused it with dark magic, and I know this sounds crazy, but I was planning to use it to bring my characters to life. Unfortunately, without the show doing so well, we went bankrupt and everyone left me."

He sighed, leaning back in sadness over what happened before he smiled again. "I know they thought it was over, that they'd never see or hear from me again, but a lot of us were friends or at least on good terms, it wouldn't be too out of the ordinary to contact them." He laughed slightly. "I'll never forget the surprised voice that answered the phone when I called the first one back. I can't believe the idiot actually came back as well. Their blood was a great contribution to my cause."

The man backed his chair away slightly, watching him nervously over his paper.

"I contacted a few people here and there to sacrifice them, I then tried to make a cartoon come to life! And it worked! Uh... for a while. I had successfully brought Boris to life, but he, sadly, didn't last long. He didn't have a soul ever, he needed one to last. He needed more than the machine could give him, more than I could give him, but I found someone who could help."

The man glanced up again at the evil hint lacing his words.

Joey laughed again. "I still can't believe it was so easy to get Lawrence back, too. And the string bean never got all that much stronger anyway, I overpowered him pretty quickly and the ritual was starting before he even registered what happened. But... then he did. Then the machine stopped working. It failed. He failed."

He growled as he continued to tell the man his crimes. "Oh, it worked halfway. He was halfway to becoming Boris when he started freaking out and accidentally caused the whole thing to shut down! If he had just stayed still it wouldn't have been so painful and the ritual would have worked! But **_no_**!"

He glared into the distance as he envisioned the ink dripping form that was all that remained of his old music director, the younger man screeching at him a million words a second. Out of all the younger's words, he thought he heard 'what have you done to me?' in there.

He then calmed down and smiled again, a laugh escaping his lips. "Still, it worked halfway, that was a good start. I thought perhaps I could fix it later and wrangled him, locking him away in the music department for a while. I laughed when he tried to escape, I laughed so much at his screaming. I guess, perhaps, I laughed too much. I don't know how he did it, but he got out without opening the gate, I returned to find words written on the walls. ' _ **Who's laughing now?**_ '. But I never saw him again."

He could tell the therapist was getting uncomfortable with this information. What? Never heard the story and musings of a cultist and killer before? Still, he had to admit, he was impressed by the man's self control over his fear, it barely showed more than a couple concerned glances.

"That isn't necessarily to say I don't know what happened to him after he ran away from me a final time, that is," Joey went on. "No, I heard of him from my other 'guests' that I invited over regularly. They'd constantly tell me about the strange ink person wandering around, we just never saw each other personally. Not that it mattered, I was just pleased to know he was still there. None of the visitors ever made it out either, why should he?" He smirked as he rested his arm across his knee, leaning forward comfortably. "And that's about it."

The man was getting really concerned now. "I-I see," he managed to utter. "I-I'm sure you feel better now after getting all that off your chest."

"Oh, I'm feeling much better~," Joey agreed, standing up. He pulled a knife out from behind his back, lunging for the man. "I feel better about doing this now!"

Joey stared at his machine with the same grin still on his face. "I can't thank you enough, doc," he stated to himself. He thought he saw vague humanesque movement out of the corner of his eye but he chose to ignore it. Probably just Sammy or a searcher looking in to keep tabs on him again. His mind had slipped again, into the one he heard Sammy refer to as 'creator'. "Not only did you help me feel better about what I'd done, but also provided me with the last sacrifice I needed."

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{~I wrote this before Chapter 3 came out and am just now getting around to sharing it with the internet. Despite the ending, I feel that Joey was actually feeling guilty and that was why he went to the therapist in the first place, even if it didn't end so well.

Anyway, Thanks for reading ^-^ ~}


End file.
